At the time of writing, we have learned of the 75 new children joining our school in Reception this September and I would like to extend the children and their families a very warm welcome to the Earls Barton Primary School community. This year, we were over-subscribed with 91 children putting us down as their first-place school. Whilst this is great news for the school (especially when so many village schools are seeing falling numbers), it obviously means some disappointed families who will not get a place at our school. There is an appeals process which is independently managed by North Northamptonshire Council for any family who wish to appeal to try and gain a Reception place at our school for September – details can be found on the NNC School Admissions website.

Recent spring term highlights in school include a wonderful “wedding day” in our Reception class which was a fantastic recreation of a wedding ceremony and wedding breakfast! The children all dressed up in their smartest clothes and the bride, groom, bridesmaids and groomsmen in particular looked fabulous! The children really enjoyed this day of meaningful and memorable learning which was the outcome following learning about special ceremonies in a range of religions. Sharing the diversity of our world in terms of culture, religion, languages and ethnicities is one of our curriculum keys and it was wonderful to see our Reception children show their understanding of their RE topic.

The quality of the music curriculum in our school goes from strength to strength, as was recently noted by a visitor from the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust (NMPAT) who was blown away by the standard of curricular and extra-curricular music on offer here. Thanks to Mrs Levell’s dedication (our music leader), we have two large and very successful choirs and five in-house recorder clubs all led by her! In addition, we have peripatetic teachers from NMPAT who offer guitar, keyboard, strings, brass and clarinet lessons here too. Our junior choir performed a wonderful spring term concert to a packed hall showcasing all of the songs they have learnt this year – “Spring Chicken” was the favouritei! This term, Year Four Thistle class will all learn the clarinet for 10 weeks for free as part of the NMPAT First Access project.Our new classrooms will be built very soon with the contract now awarded and a contractor appointed to start the works imminently. Phase 1 of the works will be removing one of the current mobile classrooms and relocating the current staff car park to its new location on the field. Phase 2 of the works will commence in the summer holidays and will involve building the five classrooms we need to improve the classroom provision here. The timeline remains at approximately 12 months in total and I will keep residents and the village updated through this forum as the work progresses.

Marie Lally

Headteacher, on behalf of the EBPS community.